I stopped at harbor freight yesterday on the way to the car show and picked up a drillmaster variable speed buffer on coupon for $29 and a black pad. After using it today I probably won't mess with a random orbital again when this knocks out a panel in 2 minutes. It does get hot but I'm putting a lot of pressure. A quick buff before a car show will be light pressure and quick. I could knock out the whole car in 10 minutes with this and meguiars 205.

Rotary is the way. You'd have to be incompetent to burn paint with one on a low setting.

Wouldn't a faster RO do the same thing, without the chances of circular lines?

I had been using a 10" cheapo random dual action I got years ago at autozone. It only has off/on. It'd take 30 minutes to do a panel. Results were fine just took a long time.

Or a 30 year o!d black and decker rotary that only had 2 speeds fast and crazy fast. And it slung compound all over. Too hard to control. It stripped out its gearbox earlier this week.

This HF drill master has a continuously variable thumb wheel controller. So you can go only as fast as you're comfortable with. You have to give it a rest as it does get hot. It works out perfect 2-5 minutes to do a panel then about the same amount of time to wipe the compound off with a microfiber towel while it cools off.

I don't see any swirl marks. Maybe I need to get out my jewelers monocle, but I don't see them even on black lacquer. The meguiars 205 is pretty good stuff.

Wouldn't a faster RO do the same thing, without the chances of circular lines?

No way, there is no comparison. DA's suck plain and simple, the sell because they are "safe" if you learn to use a rotary properly there is no swirls and they are fast. This one is great with electronic speed control, there are many left out in the wild so if anyone is interested grab one while you can. I also use an air powered 10" one for bigger jobs but its a bit hard to handle for a beginner as is the full size electrics even with variable speed.

Wouldn't a faster RO do the same thing, without the chances of circular lines?

No way, there is no comparison. DA's suck plain and simple, the sell because they are "safe" if you learn to use a rotary properly there is no swirls and they are fast. This one is great with electronic speed control, there are many left out in the wild so if anyone is interested grab one while you can. I also use an air powered 10" one for bigger jobs but its a bit hard to handle for a beginner as is the full size electrics even with variable speed.

Great advice! I bought one of them per Trav's advice, and while I have yet to use it, my friend also bought one and used it on his black benz and results were spectacular. You also cant beat it for the price.

They do produce a better result and faster but what is possible and what is likely are not always the same. To repaint a car oem quality is thousands of dollars. So you need to consider if someone will use it enough or be careful and not cause damage. Yes da is slower and less effective but if I talked someone into a rotary instead, then they wrecked their paint. I really doubt arguing it's their fault rotary is better will make them forgive you that $3000+ paint job.